CRC, RCA to convene both joint and individual sessions this month

GRAND RAPIDS — The Reformed Church in America and the Christian Reformed Church in North America will have a mix of agenda items to sort out when delegates gather later this month at their respective general synods, including a handful of lineups that signify their ecumenical relationship continues to grow tighter.

In a joint CRC-RCA synod session, delegates will determine if translation updates to historic Reformed confessions — the Belgic Confession, Canons of Dort and Heidelberg Catechism — should be ratified.

“Historically, there’s been some differences in our translations, and we wanted to have a uniform version,” said the Rev. Wesley “Wes” Granberg-Michaelson, who is retiring as the RCA’s general secretary.

“So, the version that’s proposed will be put before each synod and if it looks like each synod agrees on it, then there will be on joint session vote with the two synods.”

The joint session also will talk about the first collaborative church-planting venture between the two denominations that have been dubbed Kingdom Enterprise Zones. The evangelistic outreach will have an initial focus of four test areas in the nation, including West Michigan. A grant from the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation is providing seed money to unite their respective leaders to make new church plants possible.

The two synods also will determine if an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church to recognize one other’s baptisms as valid should be approved.

Each denomination has mined local churches’ rich vein of leadership to tap new senior denominational leaders whose election will be decided by their individual general synods.

The CRC board of trustees nominated the Rev. Joel Boot, pastor of Ridgewood

Christian Reformed Church in Jenison, to serve out the Rev. Jerry Dykstra’s remaining two-year term as the 196,900-member denomination’s executive director. Dykstra resigned in April after nearly five years as executive director.

Boot, pastor at Ridgewood since 1992, said he would decide if he will accept the nomination by Sunday. If he agrees, the CRC’s 47 classes that comprise its General Synod then will decide if it should ratify Boot’s appointment when it convenes June 10-16 at Calvin College.

The Reformed Church in America’s General Synod Council earlier this year nominated the Rev. Tom De Vries, lead pastor of the 2,600-member Fair Haven Ministries in Hudsonville, to become the denomination’s fifth general secretary. Delegates will make the final decision at the RCA’s June 16-21 General Synod, also at Calvin College.

“There are a lot of changes in store for churches, such as deciding if they should allow children to take the Lord’s Supper,” Meehan said. “In the past, it happened a little bit later in a child’s life when they make a profession of faith. This makes it less difficult for children to take the Lord’s Supper.”

Other items packed in the CRC’s 695-page Synod agenda include deciding if delegates should:

Adopt a plan to achieve ethnic diversity in the denomination’s senior management.

Gauging how a 10-year plan launched in 2003 called Our Call is breathing new life into churches, with an emphasis of embracing a multiracial future free of racism. “We have now 250 new churches under way and a major congregational revitalization effort and pastors involved in network groups for their support,” Granberg-Michaelson said.

If church deacons can serve as delegates among its classes and General Synod. Currently, only ordained ministers and elders are delegates.